Annoying journalists, the Iraq War and the “asshole of the month” section on Lou Reed’s website
Lou Reed can be remembered for many things: being the so-called ‘Godfather of Punk’, for one, as well as being one of the earliest to weave the literary with rock ‘n’ roll.
As Patti Smith eloquently described in her speech for The Velvet Underground’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996: “They opened wounds worth opening with brutal innocence, without apology, cutting across the grain…” This was anchored by Reed’s lyricism, which never shied away from transgression and honesty, however shocking or uncomfortable the results may be.
It is in a similar vein that Reed is also remembered for his infamous attitude, where, like his writing, he fearlessly spoke his mind with little regard for repercussion. Whether he was expounding his opinions on musicians or scathing against an unsuspecting subject, Reed, in his signature deadpan voice, often expressed himself with a contrarian’s point of view.
Journalists were often at the receiving end of Reed’s scorn. Numerous interview moments over Reed’s career see him staring at the journalist with contempt, giving occasional, monosyllabic answers, savagely replying with a brutal candour or, in some cases, hanging up the phone and ending conversations before they could truly begin. He became infamous for such moments, and his reputation often preceded him.
Journalist David Marchese, who interviewed Reed for Spin in 2008, summarised his perspective of Reed in the wake of the musician’s passing. “It’s possible that no matter what questions I’d asked or subjects I’d raised I would’ve elicited the same responses from Reed,” Marchese wrote, “but talking to him in person, I realised that the reason he did what he did, and acted the way he acted, was because he cared so much – about music, about his ideas, about communicating. If there’s one thing that came through in this interview, it’s that, and that is all you need to know. He belittled and berated me, but I say thank god Lou Reed was here.”
At one point in time, Reed expressed his opinions of journalists on his website, dedicating a section to naming journalists that he was not particularly fond of. He expanded on this on NPR when, speaking to a host while promoting his 2003 album The Raven (a concept work recounting the short stories and poems of Edgar Allan Poe), he was asked about how other journalists had made the mistake of mixing Reed’s original lyrics with Poe’s writings.
“Well, if you’re deaf, dumb and [redacted], it’s easy. I can’t believe people interview me for this stuff and don’t notice,” he stated. “I grade them, and I put them on my website when they fail really badly, to warn other people, other musicians: ‘Watch out for this interviewer.’ It’s like talking to a squirrel.”
While this section of Reed’s website is long gone, ABC News Australia sourced a Lou Reed fan club website that retained some of the musician’s blistering quotes about journalists he encountered. He described a Filter journalist as having an “English know-it-all attitude,” and named a journalist from Time Out as having a “woebegone attempt to woo young readers by being as crude and nasty as possible towards their betters”. Reed also disregarded a German journalist’s question of “Are you happy?” as “stupid and pointless”.
Eventually, Reed ceased writing about journalists on his website, citing the political climate surrounding the Iraq War as an indicator of larger concerns. “I’ve dropped that,” he stated, concluding, “That venture in Iraq made it impossible to keep something like that going, because the asshole of the month was forever.”
